Crop tour Arjan Jacobs
'Take more risk in onions in good years'
De Boerenbusiness Crop tour eight plots with yellow seed onions will follow this year. The participating growers take us along with the growth from sowing to harvest and the decisions in cultivation. In this series of company reports we introduce them. In the third part: Arjen Jakobs from Wezup (Dr).
In the east of the country, just above Wezup, is the company of Arjen Jakobs. On Jakobs' land you can find potatoes, onions, sugar beets and grassland. In addition to his passion for arable farming, he also has a big heart for buying and refurbishing second-hand tractors and other implements.
The total acreage of Jakobs is 92 hectares, of which 45 hectares are potatoes, of which 32 hectares are starch potatoes and this year, for the first time, 13 hectares are ware potatoes. He also grows 28 hectares of onions, 14 of which are red and 14 yellow, 15 hectares of sugar beet and 4 hectares of grassland. The soil on which it is grown is sandy soil. The starch potatoes are grown 1-on-2, consumption 1-on-4 and the onions 1-on-6.
Work peaks
Two Hoza Zaden onion varieties can be found on the company's plots: the yellow onion Hoza and the red onion Romy. Maatschap Jakobs has sown almost 30 hectares of onions, but there is no onion sowing machine at the company. Jakobs has the onion sowing done by the contractor, just like injecting manure, sowing beetroot and harvesting beetroot. The rest is all under his own management and with that he also does contract work for others. For example, he plants and harvests the potatoes at many arable farmers. His planter processes almost 200 hectares every year. The seeder also passes the dam poles of various agricultural companies in the spring. Because he is busy planting potatoes himself, Jakobs works with a farmer who prepares the land for the potatoes and a contractor sows his onions. In the autumn, Jakobs also digs up the potatoes and loads onions as contract work for other arable farmers.
Storage capacity
For the 32 hectares of starch potatoes on his farm, there is a purchase schedule from September to January. This means that a part is left off land and the rest is left in a heap on the head pack. The ware potatoes are new to the company this year. Half of these will be stored outdoors this year with cloth and straw and will be collected in the first week of December. Of this, 30 tons per hectare is grown under contract.
The shed has room for 800 tons of onions, some of which will be delivered under contract in January. If the price for January likes Jakobs, the free onions will leave earlier. If not, they will be said goodbye at the same time as the other onions in January. There are plans to realize more storage capacity. This then comes down to building a machine storage facility, which can also accommodate a pressure wall to store more onions. How many tons are grown under contract varies from year to year. If the partnership has had good years, he dares to take more risks, but if it was only meager, he grows more under contract.
Jakobs exchanges a lot of land with other growers in his area and that is how he arrives at this intensive cultivation plan for the potatoes and onions. With these land prices, Jakobs does not easily invest in property ownership. "You should try to get a great yield from every square meter and buy more land from that profit, not the other way around" He does try to improve the lesser lands on his farm where necessary, by tackling the high and low spots in a plot and drain where necessary. "The costs are the same: seed, fertilizer and spraying agents are finished, now increase the yield".
The machine park
The machine park consists of many tractors that Jakobs buys new or used. In addition, he has the hobby of buying and refurbishing old-timers and tools. For example, several syringes have been bought, refurbished, worked with and sold in the past five years. Furthermore, Jakobs has also purchased a storage computer. Previously, he did this by opening the barn door and pulling through to create the hold. There are also two reels on the farm, although they are not often used on the starch potatoes. The onions have priority over the water. "Under the line you often don't end up richer with those 12 cents per kilo of starch potatoes". With onions, irrigation is only done after the bulbs are grown, because the water is added because it has a higher yield.
Robin Winter
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